More Bujinkan Bull.

The above is an article by Arnaud Cousergue, who appeard in a video of disaster not long ago. The idea put forward in the article is that the impractical stances and movements in the bujinkan enable you to one day fight well. This is an idea that we are seeing a lot of in TMA circles as people begin to question the use of stances and forms never seen in any type of alive situation.

"Training with low Kamae is difficult and allow us to create the necessary leg power that we might eventually need in a real fight."

Training partner compliant drills in a low stance will not develop leg power. Muscular power is a combination of speed and strength, that is, the individual that can reach his peak strength in a movement in the shortest time has the most power. This is trained by explosive lifting in the gym, as in jumping squats, explosive leg press or something of that nature.

"But by having trained so many years with these low Kamae, you are now able to move swiftly and give the proper distancing to the situation."

An unverified claim that seems to have more to do with faith than empirical evidence. Do boxers train in pad work with extra low stances so they they can perform in the ring?

"Remember that your Kamae is a shield and that Uke will never be able to harm you if you stay relaxed in the Kamae when he attacks. Do not move before the attack has been launched."

Again, if this were true it should be easy to find evidence for it, sadly there isn't any.

"As for any field of expertise, the basics are wrong. But by learning these wrong forms, you develop the ability to adapt them in a real situation."

OK, let's review. We deliberatly teach things that we admit are wrong but by the magic of Father Time, repetition of wrong suddenly becomes wright. It's like a baseball or cricket coach saying "Grab the bat and practice spinning around in a circle to hit the ball. Becuase you are getting so much extra spin in this exercise, when you really need to hit the ball there will be extra power."

Load of crap from first hand experience. We trained, and were supposed to fight in low kamae in Taido. Itīs kokutsu-dachi/shuto-uke lookalike, if it says anything to you. But thatīs closest I can describe. And no, even after seven or so years, my movement in that stance was no better. Waste of energy, and tiring for legs, which could be used like....say kicking your opponents ass.:biblethum

Edit: In fact it looks like bit one on the left, lower hand about belt level, palm up. And that was supposed to be fighting stance.

Something about the ichimonji stance: It makes it easy to do thier own takedowns but nobody ever stands like that. The front leg is just presented for the opponent so all he has to do is push the body back slightly, taking the weight off the front leg, then trip or sweep, hook it out or whatever. You see a lot of stuff like this in their demos. I found when I started doing some MMA that people don't really stand the way they do during bujinkan training, and the way they do stand in a real situation was never covered. Standing side on, with the front leg out is a bad idea in a real fight. If you want stronger legs, hit the gym.

Here's a novel idea, instead of assuming his statements are unproved or untested, why not email him and politely ask him? Arnaud is a nice enough guy, I'm sure he would be happy to answer any questions you may have. He also travels quite a bit, you may be able to experience his untested training first hand.

Myabe you should actually do some research and get some real experience before you spout off like an ignorant fool.

I'm sure he is a nice guy but from a sports science perspective I disagree with the concept that impractical movements benefit practical ones, unless they are a broken down section of the movement. It all comes back to specificty. As I stated this is something we are seeing a lot of in the traditional martial arts that retain movements and stances that could be considerd a little "silly" from a combative perspective. People are starting to question them (due to never being seen in modern combat sports) and the practitioners are forced to defend them as "leading up to" the real fighting methods. To me it seems like saying "ministry of silly walks" leads up to the real running.

Cmon. Does't the title "Teaching wrong to fight good" set of a little alarm bell?